Lag Reduction Tips

[A-1]

1. Turn shadows off. This can be done in the menu under system or in the console by typing r_shadows 0

2. Lower Video settings. The lower the setting the faster your system will render the textures.

3.Use only the default Marine skin. From my personal experience and others on my server, we have found that use of the Skeleton, headless, and beserker skins cause lag.

4. Turn off download tools. Believe it or not i have seen people on my server who have Emule and Morpheus running while playing.

5. Scan and remove your system from SPYWARE. This is the number one reason and most over looked bandwidth killer. IF you have active SPYWARE running say a common download Trojan you are going to lag. Free Tools to remove these are Spyware Doctor, ADWARE, and Microsoft defender. There are more tools out there but i personally like these.

6. Close other web or IP applications while playing. ie.. Don’t have your email app running while playing.

If you have comments, questions or other tips please add them to this thread.

A-1
Hells Kitchen

[[CVG]Anton]

Thanks for the tip A-1.

It may seem like common sense to some but it IS true that these things happen.

I know on my servers I turn off FTP and other downloading software unless its time to get my tv shows that is

Great tips, thanks for contributing to help all us Server Admin.
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[A-1]

The fallowing has yet to be tested. Please use caution when editing any settings in doom 3. Know what the default settings are to change them back. To see the current or default settings type the command in the console without a value and it will display current or default value.

The following commands control the image cache, which if enabled and set correctly can help smooth FPS and may also boost performance:

image_useCache [0,1] - If set to 1, uses background loading to cache image information. This may not necessarily improve framerate performance, but it does assist in smoothing out frame rates and reducing loading pauses. Note that the image_cacheMinK (see below) size must be raised from its default otherwise the game will crash when using this setting. Once this setting is enabled, the actual cache value is set in the image_cacheMegs setting below.

Image Cache Tweaks For Doom 3

image_cacheMegs [Megabytes] - Determines the maximum amount of system memory to allocate to temporary loading of full-sized precompressed images if the cache is enabled by setting image_useCache to

Note that since this caching only applies to precompressed images, using the Ultra Quality setting will render this setting useless, since at Ultra quality no texture compression is used. (Ultra is not for online)

Since a cache is only a temporary holding area, and not the place where the entire game is meant to reside, do not raise this value to something extremely high as that will simply reduce the available memory for the rest of Doom 3. Try a value of 128MB for those with 512MB of system RAM, and if you have 1GB or more of RAM, you can try a higher value like 196MB or 256MB for example. Do not automatically set this to half your system RAM or some monstrous amount.

image_cacheMinK [KiloBytes] - This setting determines the minimum size in KB for precompressed image files to be loaded into the cache. To make sure most image files can be loaded, and to also prevent a system crash when enabling caching, select a value like 3072 to start with. Raising this setting may improve caching, but it may also hinder caching if most textures are below the size you specify, so don't just raise this value for the hell of it.

A-1
Hells Kitchen

[A-1]

OKay i have tested this for a few days now and YEs i have improved my FPS and performance.

The system i did this on has 1GB mem

The settings changes i made are here:

[calimer]

How much of an improvement did you see? I always worry about messing with those config settings though I supposed they are set mostly to a default to encompass A LOT of different hardware. Thanks for posting your findings! Take care.
-calimer
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[A-1]

The improvement is noticed when entering rooms or going thru doors. Before i would always get a lag spike and a studder for a second.

My ping is more stable ranging from 15-33 where as before it was 20-40

If a Laggy player with a high ping is in the game with me and we are actively fighting i no longer spike along with the laggy player. i do lag but it is much improved.

I should note that these changes are not NIGHT and DAY but are enough that i do recommend finding the combo that works best for your system.

Also, Do NoT as my original post states just throw a lot of ram at this or you will take away from what the game can use. In my tests i did just that to see what would happen and.....EL CRASHO. Once i even got the BSoD as my OS performed a memory dump. So unless you have the memory to play with don't play at all.

A-1
Hells Kitchen

[calimer]

Yeah that door lag is something I get sometimes too which is kind of annoying. I wonder what would be good settings for me since I only have 512mb of ram. I wonder if any of that is dependant on video card ram, which mine has 256mb.

Thanks A1 for all of your great advice and support. It is always nice to see really active people in the LMS community
-calimer
_________________
Want to make your own 3D Games for Free? Free And Easy To Use Game Creation Software!! - Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker
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Sign up for our newsletter!
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[A-1]

Happy to help out this is a great Mod.

For 512mb i would go with 128bm cache

A-1
Hells Kitchen

[Sole Surivor]

how much MB have u all got i want to now if mine is good, bad, or standard speed i got 512MB.

[mixa]

[4LCH3M1ST]

Nice tip! DOUBLED my framerate.

[13corpse]

so how exactly does this work, do you just press the tilde button (~/`) during a game and type in those commands? I tired that , and i don't see much difference at all. I guess im doing it wrong. Any tips?

[A-1]

You create a file called autoexec.cfg with your text editor. There you put these edits.

[13corpse]

where do you put that file?, the autoexec.cfg?

[Riddick]